Carrots, Not Sticks: Rethinking Enforcement of Intellectual Property Rights for 3D-Printed Manufacturing

This article explores the future impact on intellectual property (IP) rights as additive manufacturing technologies enable a larger segment of the population to create copies and derivatives of rights-protected objects. Despite growing concerns of widespread economic disruption, in reality, 3D-printed IP infringement will impact only a few specific industries, and even then, additive manufacturing will have a gradual and localized effect. Borrowing IP protections modeled on those used in the digital media industry would be ineffective.Instead, a more effective approach for companies seeking to thrive in an era of widespread additive manufacturing technologies would be to spend resources not on IP enforcement but on enticing customers with business model innovation and adding value to products in the form of quality assurance guarantees.